A weak low pressure area formed along the tail of a weakening cold
front over Georgia on August 1st.
The system moved south-southwest, moving over the Gulf of Mexico on the
3rd. By the 5th, this system
had acquired enough convective organization to be considered a tropical
depression. Strengthening slowly as
it moved west-southwest, Bess became a tropical storm on the afternoon
of the 6th. The system turned to the south-
southwest through the western Gulf of Mexico, making landfall at
Nautla, Mexico early on the 8th. By the morning
of the 9th, its remnant circulation had dissipated across southern
Mexico. Heavy rainfall was generally restricted
to the Sierra Madre Oriental mountain range in eastern Mexico.
Below are Bess' rainfall graphics, which used
rainfall data gathered from the Servicio Nacional del Agua, the parent
agency of Mexico's national weather service.